When the order was received to charge the Russian guns head-on, the 670 men of the Light Brigade couldn’t quite believe what they were hearing. Presuming Raglan wanted an assault on the heavily defended Russian artillery position at the bottom of the valley, Lucan then ordered the head of the Light Brigade, Lord Cardigan, to immediately attack the wrong target. “There, my Lord, is your enemy! There are your guns!” Nolan replied with a sweep of his arm. Confused as to which guns the Light Brigade were supposed to attack as Lucan could not see the guns from his position down in the valley below the Causeway Heights, he asked Nolan what guns Raglan wanted the Light Brigade to take. Raglan gave the order for the Light Brigade to capture these guns.Ĭaptain Louis Edward Nolan of the 15th Light Dragoons was chosen to pass on Raglan’s order to Lord Lucan, the head of the Cavalry Division. After the British successfully held back a Russian cavalry charge and the Heavy Brigade forced an enemy retreat early on in the battle, the commander of the British Army, Lord Raglan, worried that large naval guns left behind on the Causeway Heights area of the battlefield might be dragged away by the retreating troops and used against his forces later in the day.
The Light Brigade’s date with destiny occurred on the 25th of October 1854 at the Battle of Balaclava. Its counterpart, the Heavy Brigade, was made up of armoured men on heavy chargers used for full-frontal assaults on enemy positions. Hughes’ regiment was part of the British Army’s Light Brigade – a lightly armoured cavalry unit designed for skirmishing, attacking enemy positions and cutting down retreating troops. A year later Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire were at war with Russia in what would become known as the Crimean War. Hughes was a shoemaker before he joined the 13th Light Dragoons in 1852. Read more about: Black History The wonderful adventures of Mrs Seacole in many lands
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